TERRAKT
IN AUSTRALIA!And
Insurgents in Russia!, Bogus job offers in the UK, and order
confirmations for the gerlsbig.com domain!

If
you have received messages which say "TERRAKT IN AUSTRALIA"
and visited the site in question you'd be well-advised to get
your computer checked for trojans/viruses. The spam email was
sent to tempt people into linking to a rogue website which had
active scripts on it. Because of the rubbish security of
Microsoft, many computers have been infected. See helpful antivirus software here.

What's
amazing about this is how pathetically poor the security is that
allows active scripts to just run and install executables
unchecked! As per the ActiveX problem.
This is all absurd, and you shouldn't have to browse in fear!
Even if websites are suspicious-looking, you should be able to
look at them safely.

Anyway,
what does "TERRAKT IN AUSTRALIA" mean? And what are
these "unanswered questions"? For a start, "Terrakt"
is probably a Russian word meaning "Terrorist Attack".
Regarding "unanswered questions", this is quite clever
and subtle, and you can find the answers to the unanswered
questions the easy way here safely or if your computer becomes
infected you can find out the hard way. Yes, there is a terrorist
attack going on in Australia, and the spam message "Terrakt
in Australia" is part of it! Terrorists, if they're
religious enough, are known for hijacking aeroplanes and bashing
them into the buildings of financial institutions and government
establishments. What the writers of the spam message are doing
has some cyberspace similarities to that. What happens is, if you
visit their site (don't), they try to hijack your computer and
then crash it into financial companies' online businesses.

Here's
a few of the companies listed in the file HookerDll.dll which the
rogue site downloaded:

Of
course there's no certainty about any of this, but it could be
assumed that the people involved would like to target these
places. I don't know why these places are targeted, but maybe
someone can explain. (Another theory is that these banknames are
detected by the trojan if they appear in your browser, so the
program can spy on your bank password and send it to criminals).
This type of nonsense is known as phishing, and it's
a form of identity theft which
relies on assuming the person to be a muggins.

The
APPLET on the rogues website exploits weak points in the
Microsoft Windows operating system. In the same sort of way that
some houses have the key under a flower pot, a note on the door
that says "We're out. Back in three hours", and a cat
hole so big that a person can squeeze through, Microsoft systems
are generally riddled with holes. Within seconds of a Microsoft
system visiting the viral website it gets a file automatically
installed called "1.exe" in its C:/windows directory, a
file called HookerDll.dll , another called msxmidi.exe (again in
/windows), and a carefully camouflaged file called window.exe in
the directory /windows/system/ , and most of the cookies deleted.
If you run Windows and you've visited the problem website, check
your system to see if it's got 1.exe or any of the other files.
If it has, don't worry. Just get it fixed! (antivirus software).

Meanwhile,
anti-virus measures, (advice),
is being updated to include the "active Scripts"
problem.

Other
info: A more techie explanation in-depth about the Trojan attack
can be seen at Code Fish Spam Watch :: No phishing allowed! http://spamwatch.codefish.net.au/

This
kind of thing, known as PHISHING, is well
explained in a helpful newsletter by 2nd to Nunn
Computers. Apparently, the
hoaxes are not actually trying to break into the bank itself, but
are trying to PHISH your details, bank username and password, so
they can steal from your bank account. Don't let them get away
with it! See the article: PHISHING

Thanks
to Glyn of 2nd to Nunn
Computers for sending the
warning message in. Previously I'd just assumed "Terrakt in
Australia" was just another stupid spam message
like many others received here.

As
regards who is doing the attacks, as the damage here is minimal I've
no reason to trace them up and pursue them to the ends of the
earth, but current estimates suggest they are a group of
disenchanted Russians stranded in Australia and driven
to distraction by the heat, worried they might have been turned
mad on account of seeing apparitions of seemingly unearthly
wildlife, and being unable to get "a licence" in
recognition of their obvious talents as computer programmers,
they've decided to take it out on the banks and the system!

More news: The
dangerous virus-infecting spam e-mails come in many disguises.
Here's an example:

Hello, what's a nice girl like you doing in...?
Current new job opportunities: Home manager
Honest workers only!
A lot of time to spare with only a part-time job?
Are your studies impacting your work time?
Luck is your middle name!
We are looking for honest and communicative people!!
Working for us will require only limited time a day.
The company wants people who live in Australia.
Vacancies are limited, so act now and accept this hot job
opportunity.
SEIZE THE DAY AND APPLY FOR THIS JOB TODAY!help://aic###ld.info
Our site can give you even more information, check it out.
Any more questions?

Notice
anything suspicious about this? No! That's precisely the point.
It just looks like an reasonably average spam message, yet it
points to the same dangerous link as the "TERRAKT"
message. Therefore, in effect, you can't trust the links on ANY
spam message. So, although originally spam was merely a nuisance
and some of it was genuine commercial e-mail, it's now a
potential threat. So, as all spam is now a risk, it's time to
eliminate it. One way to do this is the principle of "Never Buy From Spam" ,
never follow links from spam, and never be lured into believing
it's safe!

Surprisingly
this kind of thing is still going on, months later. Wouldn't you
think the banks would have
been able to suss out that bank hoaxes were easy
to defeat by having a script at the bank computer to check users
logging in the see if their computers are infected? I've tried to
tell them.

Anyway,
here's another example of the same kind of thing as before. This
time it's Insurgents in Russia!:

And
then, here's another kind of bogus message. This message, which
is designed to frighten you into thinking you've gone and bought
a domain and hosting from someone and your credit card has been
billed for it, is again entirely a ruse to get you to click on
the link which does not go to where it claims, but to a variety
of other places! Remember: You DID NOT buy that domain, so you
don't need to check up on it. It's entirely bogus! It's got to be
either a phishing attack or at the
very least a spam scam to get you to follow a link to something
entirely spurious. This kind of thing, as shown in "spam senders make it
easy for us" is aimed at
the low intelligence bracket of customers. Simply, if you have
been fooled into opening a message or visiting a site on false
pretences, you should have enough commonsense to know it's a
fraud. If the subject line doesn't match the content, it's up to
no good!

And
another point: Several copies of this message have been received
here, to various different entirely inappropriate e-mail
addresses which were harvested from the website. The username and
password are identical in all of the messages!

Also
note that the senders have tried to fake-up your name in the
"To" field. They've tried to make it up by assuming
that your e-mail address had your name in it. It doesn't work
here because the e-mails are things like rogues@ and other such
generics. You can implement such a security measure by choosing your email
addresses and fooling the
assumers.

2.
If you think your computer may have been infected, get some anti-spyware software
and possibly some antivirus software

3.
Be aware of the kinds of cheap tricks the scamsters get up to.
Many of the most common ones are exposed and explained on helpful
pages such as the Rogues Gallery and the Anti-Virus Measures pages and
others linked from them.

4.
Next time you buy a computer, make sure it's upgradeable to Linux (an
operating system less sievelike than Microsoft). If you were
buying a house, you'd make sure the front door fitted well enough
that it didn't have a gap underneath so big that a rat could get
in, so, the same logic applies to computers.